A Note of Regret
by CeliaEquus
Summary: There was a letter left behind; and when you live in a magical school, anything can happen, as Hermione discovered. The mid-quel for this story is "Hogwarts to the Rescue", so feel free to read that one, too!


"A Note of Regret"

_May 4, 11:58am, a random corridor_

It was a letter from Severus Snape that started it all off. The letter was unusual, and it was addressed to Miss Hermione Granger, one of his former students, and recent war heroine. The letter only appeared in the pockets of his robes the moment he died.

_Dear Miss Granger,_

_To start this in so very a corny way, by the time you read this, I will be gone. Of course, in this case, I am dead. With any luck, you may even know my true loyalties, assuming that the Dark Lord loses the war. _

_As you are indeed the brightest student to have ever graced the halls of Hogwarts—yes, I did use the word 'graced'—it seems fitting to wish you good luck in the life that lies ahead of you. You remind me of me in so many ways, when I was your age. You are so studious, so desirous for full knowledge, and you have such a passion for books. I have always felt it a pity that you were a student, and a Gryffindor at that._

_I shall be frank with you, Hermione. Perhaps if we had met twenty years earlier, I could have even found it in my heart to love you. Not the love that I thought I had for Lily Potter, but a real love. Maybe the respect that I have always held for you was indeed love. However, if you are reading this letter, we were clearly never meant to be._

_Use what you read in this letter how you like; I care not. I hope that I have not stirred any regrets in you through this; call it a last confession if you like, even though I have really, on reflection, confessed to nothing._

_Sincerely,_

_Prof S Snape, spy and Potions Master._

Hermione stumbled blindly through the halls of Hogwarts. Why had he never told her? Or was she reading too much into this letter? Of course she was reading too much. She had to be. She just felt so much pity for this man, this lonely man, who had never truly been loved, not even by his closest friend. Harry had never been that good at picking up on emotions—look at how long it took him to get together with Ginny—so it's little wonder than he misinterpreted the relationship between his mother and the former professor.

Tears stung her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, her lips, her chin. She wished that he had known about the night Professor Dumbledore died. How, when Harry kept telling people that it was Professor Snape who had murdered the headmaster, nobody would believe him. They didn't believe that he was capable of killing the headmaster; and he wasn't. He simply euthenased him, maintaining his cover as a spy in the one stroke.

It wasn't fair. It simply wasn't fair. He was a man, capable of feeling more tender emotions, and life had forced him never to experience them. A man who deserved love, and never received it. This was the most beautiful, heart-wrenching, romantic letter that Hermione had ever received, and the tragedy of it was that… he was dead.

He was dead.

"Hogwarts," she whispered, pressing her hands into a wall, the letter clutched in her fingers. She had placed a Stasis Charm on it first, fearing that she would cry when she saw who it was from. The note was in her bag, the bag she had been carrying around the last… almost a year, wasn't it?

She continued to weep tears for the dead hero. "Hogwarts, you're supposed to protect us, _all_ of us. But you didn't protect him. You didn't protect him. You let life get him down, trapped him inside your walls. I know you're a building, but you're a _magical_ building, Hogwarts. You're _magical_!"

Beating her hands against the unmoving flat of a bare wall, she continued to shout, just as the clock ticked over the midday, and the gong started.

ONE

"You should have looked after him! Why didn't you? Why _didn't_ you?"

"Calm yourself," a voice said, and Hermione felt herself be wrapped in a pair of cold, hard arms. "Dear child, please don't cry. I can only do so much."

TWO

The sound resounded through the halls, but Hermione didn't notice. She was too busy listening to the strange, echoing voice.

"You know what they say, surely? Wands don't hurt people. People hurt people."

THREE

"I know," Hermione said hollowly, and the arms of Hogwarts pulled her closer to the wall.

"He needs your help," Hogwarts said, and Hermione disappeared into the stonework.

FOUR

"How?" Hermione asked. "Isn't he dead?"

"He was," Hogwarts said. "But not where you're going."

FIVE

The sound was decidedly muffled. What was going on? Hermione could feel something around her neck, a strange tingling. What was it?

SIX

She looked down, and fingered the pendant at the end of the chain. It was the crest of Hogwarts. She looked around in confusion, and then felt words coming to her.

SEVEN

"Speak them, dear child, and do not be afraid," Hogwarts whispered, turning Hermione around and then letting her go, so that she was standing alone in the darkness, facing the way she had entered. Hermione spoke slowly, her voice strange.

EIGHT

_As the hour nears,_

_Send me through the years._

NINE

_Two decades will do,_

_To find my love so true._

TEN

_Give me full free rein,_

_To save lives again._

ELEVEN

_To mend each Hogwarts wall,_

_Magic, heed my call!_

TWELVE

Hermione stumbled out of the wall, tears streaming down her face. She fell to her knees, the necklace swaying, and she saw a hand offering itself to help her up. Hands grasped at her waist once she was standing, steadying her. She looked up and saw him.

_

* * *

_

May 4, 12:30pm, the Great Hall

Albus Dumbledore was chatting with the Snapes over lunch. It was nineteen years since Lord Voldemort had been defeated, with their considerable help, and the usual ball to celebrate it was being held that night.

The day always held more significance for Hermione and Severus than just the war being won, however; it was the day they met and fell in love. Exactly six months after that, they had married; so in early November, they would celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary.

Graduation was coming up, and their oldest child, Max, was among the students finishing that year. Many of their friends would be there to see the celebration: Harry Potter's parents and siblings; his godfather, Sirius Black, would be bringing his wife and brother, as well as his own son; Remus and Tonks Lupin with their children; Neville Longbottom's parents and grandmother; the entire Weasley clan, including all spouses and children.

Draco Malfoy's parents and his aunt and uncle. Bellatrix was actually quite amusing, Hermione had found, once she had got over her Voldemort-mania. The Lestranges would bring their children as well, who were playmates of Severus and Hermione's offspring.

Their children lived at the school with them, and they would return to Spinner's End for the holidays. The youngest, Jean, sat on her father's lap, eating the mashed potato that he had cut up for her.

"You indulge her too much," Hermione remarked.

"She likes it cut up, Merlin knows why," Severus said. "And it's impossible too indulge a four-year-old girl too much."

"Indeed," Albus said, nodding.

If Hermione had never stumbled into Severus' life, he might have ended up a surly, cynical, lonely man, wasting away from years as a Death Eater and a spy. She was the only person in his life who was ever surprised by his perpetual kindness and good nature; but then, he was the only one who knew where—_when_—she was from.

"I trust we'll see you at the ball tonight," Minerva said, leaning across Albus to talk to her friends.

"For all the good he'll be," Hermione said, tilting her head to her husband. "He'll be utterly useless the rest of the day; you won't get any good out of him in classes."

"Why not?" Albus asked, concerned. Severus smirked.

"She's pregnant… yet again," he said, and many hearty congratulations followed.

Hermione excused herself, and left the hall to go upstairs. She wandered around the hallways, glad that she missed herself; no doubt she would have freaked out seeing herself disappear into a wall. But she pressed her hand on the cold stone, as she did on that day every year.

"Thank you, Hogwarts," she whispered. "Thank you for rescuing me."

As she walked away, fingering the crest on the chain, she could have sworn that she heard the school reply, "You're welcome, Mrs. Snape."

**

* * *

**

Finite incant… story. What _**is**_** 'story' in Latin? Anybody?**

**I don't know whether any of you expect/want more story than that. I guess I could write a mid-quel, if need be. This is just a different kind of time-travelling story; the moral is that the destination is just as important as the journey there. And with all the other stories I've got to start, `twas just easier to write a one-shot than do a recycled plot, albeit it with hopefully original bits and pieces in it.**

**I like the thought of an amusing Bellatrix Lestrange, instead of the usual nutty one, and that they all get on together like a house on fire. House unity. What more could you want?**

**Well, in my case… MORE SNOW OUTSIDE! But that's because I'm from Brisbane, and we never have snow there, so until this trip to London, I'd never actually seen any. So YAY! Ehem.**


End file.
